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Sakmongkol ak 47

ariff.sabri@gmail.com

Tuesday, 10 November 2015

Picture this. The finance Minister comes before parliament
and makes a pious presentation on the 2016 budget proposal. He actually pontificates.
He does this with a poker face. He appeals to the Maker of the seven heavens
and seven earths. He refers to holy verses. He makes reference to wasathiyah
and maqasid shariyah.

He does this
while carrying inside him, the burden of huge falsehoods.Now, that's beguiling.

He knew
what Jho Low was up to. He went along and abetted the chinaman. 1MDB was a huge
scam to milk as much money as possible. It’s an UMNO culture and its president
is the chief proponent.

Nobody else
knew what was going on with 1MDB. No one in the cabinet were told. 1MDB then imploded
as its financial mischiefs surfaced.

Police reports
were made by the crusading Khairudin Abu Hassan. He is in jail at the moment. I
am told he meets up regularly with Anwar Ibrahim. It is an irony. The man who
started the downfall of Anwar is now sharing the same premises as him.

Now, I am
also told by my sources though I cannot affirm the veracity, that 2 senior
members of Najib’s cabinet told Khairudin explicitly never to withdraw his police
reports. Both these senior ministers claimed that no one in the cabinet were briefed
on 1MDB. Let all hell break loose they say and let Najib fry.

Perhaps the
sources were only interested in besmirching the names of Adnan Mansor and Zahid
Hamidi. I am sure they are honourable
men.

Perhaps
Najib wanted to spare the cabinet from listening the briefing done in English
and so thought it wasn’t necessary to brief the cabinet.

When assessing
Najib as PM and Finance Minister, I am reminded of the polemical books by Christopher
Hitchens; The Trial of Henry Kissinger and No One left to lie to.
I recommend people to read these books and many others by the same author. Hitchens
died in December 2011.

Because,
the titles of the 2 books are a nice fit in the machinations of Najib. We are
reading a trial of Najib. How it was he who created this monstrous scam called
1MDB. And he is lying to everyone in Malaysia, there’s no more left. From Kings
to commoner, from patricians to plebeians.

I have to break
a promise I made to myself. I promised to give myself an extended break. I
should have said sine die. But the
budget is too enticing. Plus I was there when Najib delivered his budget
speech.

Is there
actual money in the first place in the Budget? I hear rumours attributed to
government ministers telling followers that there is no money. Perhaps, the
only ministry to have money and takes precedence over all others is the PMs
department. He takes up RM20 billion.

MARA? Education
Ministry? No money yet.

This man
has destroyed almost all the institutions that support the integrity of this
country. The office of the Attorney General, the MACC and Auditor General are
all compromised. They have been forced to be pliant. The last remaining bulwark
is Bank Negara.

Is Bank
Negara managing our financial system well enough? Take for example the various pronouncements
made by Bank Negara. Do we actually have USD reserves with which to do mop up operations?
I.e. selling the greenback to buy as much Malaysian Ringgit as possible to
drive up the value of the Ringgit. All I hear is that we have so much and so much
RM equivalent in USD. Why didn’t the governor say, how much USD reserves we actually
have.

Why do we
find so much amount of Malaysian Ringgit in the market? Who has been flooding
the market with Ringgit? It is as though some people in Malaysia are printing the
Ringgit, spending them and flooding the market with the ringgit. These people
may buy anything with USD. They may even be amassing USD and now that Bank
Negara can accept USD, they may want to keep USD accounts with Bank Negara. Whether
they can do that directly with Bank Negara, I would not know. .

When I
listened to Najib delivering his budget speech- it was full of tumbril remarks,
you can’t help to feel utterly disenchanted and can’t wait to kick him out
Putrajaya.

Tumbril
remarks are those smart ass remarks proffered by the nobility that are likely
to incite thoughts of revolution. These are remarks made by the upper crust
designed to inflame instantaneous abhorrence and revulsion. Those who hear them
cannot wait to kick out the author of those remarks.

Examples.
If people don’t like to pay toll rates, use free roads. If people can’t afford
to eat meat, eat soybean curd. If people don’t like it here, they can emigrate.

Don’t you
feel revolted when Najib advises people to spend judiciously when he and the
missus splurged around the world? Don’t you feel the erupting anger when Najib
offers pious counsels on how to manage our personal finances, when he hasn’t
come clean about the financial wrongdoings under his watch? Don’t you feel
utterly impatient to see him get booted out for behaving as though we owe him a
living and we can thank our lucky stars that Najib is around?

Nobody dies
if he is not around. UMNO will survive him. The people of Pekan will not drop
dead.

Najib’s
oeuvre is his annual showmanship presenting the budget with all the fanfare of
a circus atmosphere. The budget speech 2016 (not to be
confused with the bloody thick anggaran perbelanjaan persekutuan 2016, is full
of tumbril remarks.

Some
examples. This budget is made in the name of He who has created the 7 heavens
and the 7 earths, made in the name of such and such holy verse, made in
cognizance of the principle of wasathiyah, always in compliance with maqasid
shariyah and so forth.

What is
Najib doing? Najib is pontificating. The budget is suspicious- because it was
presented in such a magniloquent manner.

The budget is a circus.

First I
don’t fully understand the over-excitement about budget 2016 or any budget for
that matter. It’s an extended document, presented by the finance minister about
how much we collected-.that’s called revenue and how that revenue is to be
applied. To do that, the finance minister comes before parliament and asks
parliament to approve setting aside a specific sum from the consolidated fund.
For 2016, the finance minister asks for RM267 billion.

The key
sentence- comes before parliament to seek approval for setting aside some money
from the consolidated fund. The money set aside will be used for opex-
operating or recurring expenditure and capex- capital expenditure. Operating
costs and development costs for managing the country. Najib is a glorified
general manager of the country responsible to the board of directors, the MPs
who in turn represent the real shareholders of the country- the citizens of
this country.

The
technicians can go nibble at the details. They have an important job to do. But
let us look at the bigger picture. Let’s look at least 5 budgets before. 5
years is a reasonable time period to expect some changes to have taken place. But
not 1 year. What can a year achieve?

Yet Najib
speaks of epochal transformation enabled by one year’s budget. Is he a
fantasist or what?One year cannot achieve
anything. Not rural transformation. Not agricultural transformation.

9
comments:

You have to be firing on all cylinders and smoke Najib and his Cabinet 'kayu'. Its as much the rakyats' frustration as yours that all we could do is pure rhetoric and glossy writings.

We saw Tun M is putting his head but the 'Power that be' is still contemplating to drop the blade of the guillotine only because they very well knew that if that happens, as you said, all hell will break loose!

Yet Tun M kept the momentum and keep throwing 'baits' for what??? Don't think he's trying to end his late years with such humiliation if not for the sake of the country! But, yet we cannot still see the UMNO goons in the upper hierarchy and the ground not building up on any swell! We saw some branches knock-knock and made some noises but its no groundswell.

The Opposition??? We are not seeing consolidation, however, what the rakyat could simply smell rats that they merely 'playing-ball' only to the sentiment and the opposition knows, Najib stays, it will be EASY MEAT at GE14 for the taking!!!

So, both sides of the divide, is/are,

1- The country really the PRIME motive to be save from the pirates?2- The well-being of the rakyat you're supposed to represent or playing 'plain-politics'???

Dude, the RM is very adamant @ 4.3 against the green back and very very persistent and would not budge! Capital outflow from the stock market, go figure! But we haven't even deliberate other indicators within the economy, all is well you think???

Dude, you said your piece (I agree entirely)and I said mine and we do not need to go on a merry go round. You're in the zone so, just go get going and make the real move and change the situation. As for me as the rakyat, we're on the fringe and we're pawned for now until GE14 where our SOLE power in our hands can be utilised for good change!

Just ask your ex fellow BN colleagues to just disappear for a while when the votes are taken to kick out Najib's budget. They would do the country proud and at the same time save the country from further financial collapse.

If you leave it to Najib, he will not resign because he is too scared to face the corruption charges that have been lined up against him. Just kick him out & we can change the course of history.

Budget 2016 is only for show. The fact is our PP treats the tax payers' money as his own piggy bank. This means the Ministries will just have enough money to function and the rest is his. The 1MDB scandal is only a tip of the iceberg. There are many more scandals of similar magnitude that are unseen.

It is sad indeed to see the magnificent efforts and achievements of this marvelous and blessed Nation going to waste. National politics and Government of the day remind me of cheap soap operas, which we all are forced to watch. This sad, toll-taking and tragic show, with no way of switching off the TV or changing to a better channel is like a venom being injected in to the socio-political and economical fabric of Malaysia. I fear that the chief showman with his newly found Islamic flavor and the "Donation Collection Club" are here to stay for a while. The rakyat should be vigilant as Islam has always been a tool for desperate leaders to grab or hold on to power. Time for the Umma to return to the traditional Malay Islam, which was and should remain apolitical, and cater to the spiritual needs while experts and loyal, patriotic Malaysian politicians return Malaysia to the path of development and democracy. Don't give up the fight. It is worth fighting for this lovely Nation. After all, we all learned: Malaysia Boleh!